At the time I dutifully had my second COVID test done, 5 days after arriving in Queensland, I thought you had to isolate until the results come in. So on Christmas Eve we returned from Sandstone and braced ourselves to skip the family celebration, having not yet received our results. Bitti was pretty devo as she’d been hearing a LOT about the Filipino Christmas Eve, including that Santa visits at midnight and everyone stays up all night. But I stumbled across a post on social media that suggested we didn’t need to isolate after all. After combing the Qld health website for the 50th time, I finally found a short sentence confirming this! So, we rallied at about 8 pm and got to join in on the family Christmas dinner.
We had a fabulous time celebrating with R’s family. The table was laden with food, the house was decorated in full and everyone was ready for a good time. Come midnight, Bitti was extremely lucky to get a present from the family, including a little pirate toy she adored, and some new knickers she desperately needed. Her favourite part proceedings was when the gingerbread house was brought out down for the kids to smash with a rolling pin. Bitti really got into it, smashing the heck of it until pieces were lying all over the place. The kids dived in and grabbed the lollies that had been bashed off the demolished roof. Although the other kids showed little sign of slowing, I knew I had to get Bitti off to bed or I would PAY the next day, so dragged her into the car at about 1.30 am.
The next day we did not sleep late as Bitti is incapable of such a feat. We passed the morning chilling out in our little room, me watching Christmas movies, Bitti playing Roblox. In mid-afternoon we went to Christmas lunch with my brother and sister-in-law in Zillmere.
M and F had put together a beautiful lunch spread with salads and a vegetarian lasagne, and home-made Christmas crackers. Ev was given a slack-line! She can keep refining her excellent balance with that. Bitti’s cousin was excited to see us but took a little while to warm up. He has been a COVID baby and isn’t much used to interacting with ‘big’ kids like Bitti, who I think he found quite boisterous. It was a quiet but lovely Christmas.
Over the next few days in Brisbane we did a few day trips and odd jobs. Bitti and her friend C had a step-counting competition with C’s new Fitbit and my Garmin, which I lent to Bitti. I took the girls to see Spiderman: No Way Home. Most of it was over their heads but they enjoyed the stunts a lot. And Bitti learned what a ‘spoiler’ was a day later when she saw a spiderman character on the TV at home and announced a huge plot reveal to the entire family, most of whom had not yet seen the latest film. Whoops!
R and I did a bit of shopping, but my previous year of trying not to buy anything has rubbed off so hard that I couldn’t get inspired to part with any cash. We visited Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary with my family and Bitti had a wonderful time chasing water dragons, patting kangaroos and dingoes, and held a koala. The last activity was a visit with the two eldest girls to a ‘Harry Potter’ playground in Griffin. They had a long, lazy morning there blasting who-knows-what out of the sky with their wands and I went on several hundred laps of the park to try and get a walk in.
Our next camp was going to be at Habitat Noosa, on Lake Cootharaba. An unpowered site awaited us, and we were a little worried about being too hot. The lake offered SUP and bike rental and a selection of hiking trails (not that the kids would ever agree to step upon them). R spent a few hours planning and packing the esky with such precision that it could have lasted us until the end of a trip to Mars, let alone 7 days camping. After a car re-shuffle we set off, ready for our next adventure!
Two Little Travellers 